Keep Right On are three words that have become as synonymous with Birmingham City as any over the last 70 years.

What started as a song and became an anthem has been adopted by fans as their motto, more often abbreviated to KRO over the last decade on social media. BirminghamLive's Blues podcast even takes its name from the phrase.

However, Keep Right On only started being associated with the club over halfway through their 150-year history. To give the song its full name, 'Keep Right On To The End of the Road' was written over a century ago by the Scottish singer Sir Henry Lauder and first recorded 18 months later before finally being released in April 1926.

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Lauder wrote the song in a railway carriage en route to Scotland. Thirty years later, then Blues manager Arthur Turner instigated its adoption by the club on a coach to London.

Turner encouraged his players to sing together during away trips to ease the tension before matches. As the late Alex Govan once recalled to BBC Radio WM : "We always had a sing-song on the coach wherever we went away from home."

While travelling down to play Leyton Orient in an FA Cup fourth-round tie, Turner turned to Govan and said: "'Come on, Alex, give us something from Scotland.'"

"I couldn't sing 'I Belong to Glasgow'," the Glaswegian remembers thinking, "so I sang 'Keep Right On to the End of the Road' - it was the easiest to sing." It went down well, with the players still singing along upon their arrival at Brisbane Road.

"The fans heard us through the windows," Govan said, "and it's been magic ever since." It then caught on in the terraces, with Turner moved by the rendition before and after their quarter-final against Arsenal at Highbury in the quarter-final during their 3-1 win.

Three thousand travelling fans then sang 'Keep Right On' at Hillsborough during the semi-final against Sunderland, which Blues won 3-0 to reach their most recent FA Cup final, a quarter of a century after their first in 1931. Before then, the club played the song before a league game against Blackpool at St Andrew's, even providing songsheets to supporters.

Wembley Stadium also heard the strains of 'Keep Right On' after its inclusion in the traditional pre-match community singing schedule. Manchester City won the cup that year, a match remembered nationally for their goalkeeper Bert Trautmann playing on despite breaking a bone in his neck during a collision with Blues inside left Peter 'Spud' Murphy, but the song stuck.

Then, 55 years later, Bluenoses got 'Keep Right On' to number 23 in the official independent singles chart ahead of their next major cup final, the 2011 League Cup. The opening verse and a couple of lines in the chorus have changed to identify more with Blues over the years, but it is still the same song over 60 years later.